Industrial nations have produced mobile societies that are accustomed to the convenience and availability of personal automobiles. At the same time, fast food outlets cater to these mobile societies by offering reasonably priced, handheld convenience food products. Fast food outlets even offer "drive-thru" lanes where food can be ordered, picked up and paid for without leaving an automobile.
Where food obtained from "drive-thru" lanes of a fast food outlet is transported to an office, home, etc. before it is eaten, the food can be kept in the packaging provided by the fast food outlet until consumed. On the other hand, where the consumer desires to eat while driving, the packaging provided by the fast food outlet offers no convenient way of either supporting or holding food products while the consumer is operating an automobile.
The desire to eat while driving has prompted the development of many different types and kinds of individual and combined beverage and food holders for use in vehicles. Examples include beverage cup holders for vehicle doors such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,128,983; 3,712,235; 4,606,523; 4,645,157 and 4,655,425. Other related patents disclose vehicle beverage and food trays attached to various interior parts of an automobile such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,331,494; 3,800,939; 3,606,112. In some instances, article support consoles for the area intermediate the two front seats of an automobile have included beverage and food compartments such as those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,110,397; 3,561,589; 3,771,554; 3,909,092; and 4,512,503.
Some vehicles do not have console areas intermediate the two front seats. Trays mounted in such areas are not particularly convenient to the driver while driving. Trays could be mounted on the instrument panel of the automobile, but there are a wide variety of instrument panels, making it difficult to find a common area to mount a convenience food tray. Despite these difficulties many drivers would use a detachable convenience food tray while driving, if available, particularly when food has been obtained from the "drive-thru" lanes of a fast food outlet.